1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for supporting and cooling a continuous casting emerging from a discharge end of a mold, which comprises a member having a support surface and mounted below the mold at the discharge end thereof in such a manner that one of the faces of the emerging continuous casting comes into contact with the support surface of the member and glides therealong, the member defining cavities spaced along the support surface, spraying heads positioned in the cavities to project jets of a cooling fluid onto the face of the emerging continuous casting in contact with the support surface of the member. More particularly but not exclusively, devices of this type are used to support and cool the small faces of a continuous metal casting having a rectangular cross section and considerable width, such as a steel slab.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Spraying nozzles fed by water or another cooling liquid are used in known devices of this type. Although it is known that cooling by an atomized cooling fluid, that is a projection upon the face of the emerging continuous casting of fine droplets of water suspended in a current of air, is much more effective and protective of the casting face than cooling by a liquid spray, it has been impossible to use this better mode of cooling in the known devices because atomizing nozzles are too big to be housed in the cavities of the support member. Whatever their structure, such nozzles always comprise an atomizing chamber where the cooling liquid is divided into droplets and these droplets are dispersed in a current of air, and a conduit of some length must feed the liquid-air mixture from the atomizing chamber to a spraying head pierced by an orifice of a suitable shape to produce a jet of atomized cooling fluid of the desired shape.